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Making America great again? : Comments
By Babette Francis, published 5/12/2016There has been enough egg on the faces of journalists both of the Left and the Right since Donald Trump's win to make several omelettes, and not particularly savoury omelettes at that.
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At first that this reference to the "Right" seemed a typo, but then, Babette Francis had mentioned that journalists of both the Left and the Right have egg on their faces.
Greg Sheridan, one of the best conservative commentators, had failed to comprehend that Trump was on the road to victory. But so did the American writer P J O'Rourke, who's personal dislike for Trump over-rode his usual perspicacity. And there was no academic or "think tank" commentator in the whole of Australia who supported Trump, as far as I'm aware. Even conservative commentators who thought Trump had some small chance, felt obliged to say that, of course, he is a terrible individual.
A friend of mine, who regards himself as conservative, throughout the presidential primaries and the campaign backed Clinton and explained his animosity to Trump as "he's a scumbag", without ever being able to explain why. I had a bet with him back in March that Trump would win. And I persuaded him to doubled it three weeks before the election.
Trump's victory should have been expected after Brexit, Turnbull's near death experience and the poll failures in the Australian and UK elections. Then there's Merkel's Europe and the political cadaver Obama left behind.
The turnout of supporters at rallies (800,000 plus) swamped those turning out for Clinton (a few thousand). Trump dared the "crooked" TV crews to pan around the venues and show his crowds and Clinton's. They refused, fostering the illusion that her few hundred here and there were the equivalent of Trumps thousands. If you're getting that many to a rally, you're going to get a big turnout on voting day. And they duly did turnout.
The PC media - the same mob who lied about Trump daily, laughed at his supporters, like Ann Coulter, colluded with Clinton in the presidential debates and actively campaigned against Trump against every journalistic principle - now talk about a post-truth world, as though their post-truth campaign had nothing to do with it. Clinton's "deplorables" speech, was the cherry on the cake.